5 of the Best The Mary Tyler Moore Show Moments

The Academy Award-nominated actress’ career spanned more than six decades, with her most memorable role being on the self-titled The Mary Tyler Moore Show. For seven seasons, she starred as Mary Richards, a single Minnesota woman in her 30s who works as a producer on local news station WJM-TV. In total, Moore won four Emmys and one Golden Globe for her performance.

The season 5 episode “You Try to Be a Nice Guy” has Mary continuing to help her friend Sherry (Barbara Colby), this time by trying on her latest design. While Mary isn’t a fan of the revealing green dress, it was enough to get a dehydrated Ted in a lather.

The news crew shows up to bury Chuckles the Clown in the season 6 episode “Chuckles Bites The Dust,” but surprisingly, it’s Mary who can’t keep it together. After judging the others for making jokes, she is the one who gets the chuckles.

First Lady Betty Ford makes a cameo over the phone in season 6’s “The Seminar.” The one problem is that Mary doesn’t really believe that it’s the first lady. Already not buying into Lou’s (Edward Asner) famous group of friends, her disbelief only grows when Mrs. Ford is supposedly on the phone.

After seven seasons and 168 episodes, The Mary Tyler Moore Show signed off with “The Last Show.” The final scene features the friends and coworkers together one last time, before Mary exits alone, turning the lights off one last time.

Featuring the famous theme, “Love Is All Around,” the show’s title sequence became one of television’s most iconic. Following Mary through her life in the city, it’s capped off with her triumphant and memorable hat flip.